Researchers may have found a less toxic alternative to using quantum dots in displays, the so called carbon dot which is a semiconductor that generate a rather cold light, in that they do not emit much yellow or red wavelengths. Previously the CDs were used as the white light which shone through QDs but they contain cadmium or lead which tends to be strictly controlled when used in consumer goods. Nanotechweb is reporting on the successful results of teams which are using cadmium free zinc copper indium sulphide core/shell QDs to produce displays with a significantly higher colour-rendering index than currently available LEDs are capable of, so we may still be on track for better displays in the next few years.

"By combining carbon dots that emit blue light and zinc copper indium sulphide quantum dots that emit in the green and red regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, researchers in China and the US have succeeded in making white light-emitting diodes with a high colour-rendering index of 93."

Research into using quantum dots in LCDs has been ongoing and several breakthroughs at research laboratories have proven that they can provide much a much wider and more accurate colour spectrum than conventional backlit LCDs. The size of the dot effects the colour, with larger dots fluoresce red, mid-sized dots green and the smallest blue, emulating the familiar spectrum of pixels at a lower energy cost and greater accuracy. DigiTimes is reporting on the predictions of DisplaySearch which feel that quantum dots will be the next step forward for LCD technology and could represent up to a quarter of the smartphone display market by 2020.

The technology to incorporate quantum dots into displays is currently available but there are several hurdles which need to be overcome before you can expect to see them in your next mobile device. First and foremost is the price of manufacturing, as with any new process the first generations are quite expensive to manufacture, even if it is ways to molecularly seed a panel with a tailored particles to produce quantum dots succeeds in large quantities. Current mass production relies mostly on heavy metals such as Cadmium which are strictly regulated when used in commercial products and would likely not be approved for use in the production of mobile phones in the amounts currently required. It won't happen in the next few generations of phones but keep your eyes peeled for greatly enhanced LCD panels by the end of the decade.

"The firm said that the penetration of quantum dots in smartphone TFT LCDs will be 3% in 2015, growing to 26% in 2020. Penetration in tablets will also be relatively high, with nearly 2% penetration in 2015, growing to 15% in 2020. The quantum dot penetration in LCD TVs is expected to be lower, due to the large area of TV displays. DisplaySearch forecasts that less than 1% of LCD TV screens will use quantum dots in 2015, growing to 9% in 2020."

The biggest hurdle in building a transistor that uses quantum effects to move electrons is that the transistor needs to be kept at incredibly low temperatures, a drawback common to anyone who has worked with superconductors. Since the hoped for benefit of using quantum effect transistors is to avoid the heat generated in current silicon based models, it defeats the entire purpose of the project if you still need a custom cooling solution. According to this article at The Register you might not need to worry about supercooling your transistors thanks to work being done by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the MTU group who have created a transistor made up of three nanometer gold quantum dots, insulated by boron nitride nanotubes which successfully transferred electrons at room temperature. You will not be seeing this technology in consumer products any time soon and the boffins in the EUV lithographic business come up with a few new tricks in the mean time.

"The world might still be 20 years from the end of Moore's Law, but the hunt for technologies to replace semiconductors is going on right now. A group from Michigan Technological University is offering one such alternative: a quantum tunnelling transistor that operates at room temperature."